Did you ever
heard of Beinhaus? I didn’t it! Set up in 1994 by core members Robert Glück and
Marko Schröder, this German formation got joined by a few extra members and
self-released all of their work. They this year signed a label deal with Krater
Recordings (subdivision from Audiophob) unleashing the album “Zaehne”. This
work sounds retro-industrial like and yet still modern. It for sure sounds
different from the average industrial productions. Robert Glück brings us an
introduction to Beinhaus, which I highly recommend to all industrial music
lovers.

Q: Beinhaus saw the daylight in 1994, but
I get the impression you first of all remain one of the best hidden secrets
from the industrial scene. Tell us a bit more about Beinhaus considering
elements such as influences, sound, recognition and the main facts in the band’s
history?

Robert: Yes, Beinhaus
has actually been around since 1994 -with some ups and downs and always times
in which we did almost nothing for months. The last motivation boost came in
2015 when we started working with the Native Instruments machine, which
characterizes our today’s background sound. In 2016 David joined Beinhaus as a
multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer. He has brought our sound to the front
and has just shaped our last album “Zaehne (Teeth)”.

In the years
before, Marko and I made music together with a guitarist (1994-2000) and a
female singer (2002-2007). With each change of personnel, our sound has changed
as well. But we still play the same tracks -so they had to change over the
years too.

Our influences
are very wide and only partially obvious. Of course bands like Einstürzende
Neubauten or Test Dept. have really inspired us. The biggest influence was the
band Babyland from the USA. This is much closer to our sound we wanted to
create: electronic-punk with industrial drums.Modern and retro at the
same time.

Q: You are definitely one of the few
industrial bands inspired by the early industrial sound; a sound composed with
electronics, but also with self-made metal instruments. Can you give us more
details about it?

Robert: Our
sound is definitely sequencer-driven. In that way, we do not differ from many
other electronic acts. The tracks follows a song structure and arrangement,
which is based on beats and bass sounds. But as we do the live drumming, they
can be very reduced. What we do on the metal drums forms another layer on top
of it. For me, the performance and the visual is actually much more important
than the sound… we could make it sound better and more brilliant with
samples. But it just makes more fun beating the equipment without compromise
-and this is what makes our live performance really outstanding.

Q: I’ve been always wondered why the truly
industrial spirit from pioneers like Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept., SPK ao
has been progressively replaced by power-noise artists composing music with
their laptops. Beinhaus tries to be a little bit different and your new work
even sounds as an antidote to the current industrial music. How comes and how
do you see this evolution in industrial music?

Robert: I see industrial
in the tradition defined by bands like Throbbing Gristle: extra-musical
elements and performance, shock tactics, anti-music, information and
self-organization. This is what industrial really means to me…

Many of these
elements have guided us through the years… and still do today. This is the
first time we have had a label (Krater Recordings) in 25
years. Before, we always did everything by ourselves… which was also a reason
why we did not have a very long reach.

I have a bit
of a feeling industrial concerts today are rather hard-techno parties. By the
way, that’s not bad at all. I like that too. But it lacks a bit of the thrill
that something unexpected, maybe dangerous or disturbing could happen. Meanwhile,
we do not use elements such as masks or video images on stage. That’s what so
many do… and I’m sure it’s much more effective to look people in the eyes
-and again… it’s more fun!

Q: Tell us a bit more about the new album
“Zaehne”? What has been the main focus in the writing process and how do you
look back at the global composition?

Robert: As in
all CDs so far we have some new and also very old tracks. “Dldeng” is one of
our first songs ever and was the opening track of our demo “Zorn” of 1998.
Tracks like “Zähne” or “Ich Weiss Alles” have been created in the last years.
For example, “Abriss” is so new that we have never played it live -but we will
do. We work very slowly and like to recycle our own material. Mostly we just
rehearse and play our tracks.

We publish
some songs again and again, but they’re always different. The tracks are in a
permanent metamorphosis. We have almost no songs that have fallen out of our
tracklist over the years, so we do not play them anymore. But actually a
maximum of 2-3 really new tracks are created each year.

Q: I can imagine it’s not that easy
recording and mixing metal percussions. How did that happen and do you’ve
specific criteria to get the sound production you like?

Robert: Since Dave
joined in, he does our sound engineering. It’s actually not easy to transfer
the energy of the raw metal sounds to CD. There is a lack of visual impression
which is very important for us. I have also been very inclined to mix the metal
sounds very fat -so they took up a lot of room in the mix… But the mix also
loses sharpness and dynamics.

Dave is
trained to do that much finer. With many layers of different sounds that are
not so much in the foreground. That makes a much more professional sound you
can hear on “Zaehne” -although we did not record in a studio, but in our
rehearsal room. But we, especially Dave, spent a lot of time on the recordings
and the mix.

Q: You already mentioned the live performances
of Beinhaus, which I guess must be something special. How does Beinhaus on
stage looks like?

Robert: Beinhaus
is absolutely a live band. Of course, the performance sets us apart from many
current industrial bands. There is no table between us and the audience. It
creates a lot of energy from the interaction with the audience. It feels very
good, at the end of the concert, when we drum together on metal plates with the
people in the front row.

I think people
are very grateful for a real hard sweaty performance. And we enjoy the total
anarchy on stage. It’s always very exhausting, we have to transport a lot, have
a long build-up and cut-down times, but for the 60 minutes on stage that’s
absolutely worth it. We always give 100% from ourselves and the audience see
and feel that. Therefore, we can probably never do a tour. We can’t deliver
this intensity night after night. We do about 6-7 concerts a year. That’s
perfect. So we make each concert an experience -for us and hopefully for the
audience. So thanks to all that joined our show.

Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 2 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.